The annual ritual of confronting exactly where the money genuinely went
Every January I do the same thing, which is sit down with my actual bank statements from the previous year and try to properly understand where all the money genuinely went, and every January I am surprised, in more or less the same specific ways, by what the numbers actually show me.
The coffee number that always shocks me
I know, in the abstract, that buying coffee out most days adds up. Everyone knows this, in the abstract. But there is a specific, considerable difference between knowing this in the abstract and seeing the actual total for the year printed in front of you, and that number gets me every single January regardless of how much I brace myself for it in advance.
I have tried, several times, to simply make coffee at home instead, and I always manage it for a few genuinely virtuous weeks before slowly sliding back into the old pattern, because there is something about the specific fifteen minutes of buying a coffee on the way to wherever I am going that functions as a small, necessary pause in an otherwise fairly relentless day.
Transport costs versus actual transport need
My annual transport spending, properly totalled, is considerably higher than I would have guessed, and a meaningful portion of it, if I am honest with myself, reflects genuine laziness rather than genuine necessity, journeys I could have walked but did not, mostly because I was tired or it was raining or I simply could not be bothered.
I do not think this is a moral failing exactly, but seeing the actual number does prompt a specific kind of resolution, renewed every January with varying degrees of follow through, to walk more and tap my card less.
The subscription graveyard
Going through a full year of bank statements always reveals at least two or three subscriptions I had genuinely forgotten I was still paying for, services I signed up for during some specific mood or project months ago and then simply never got around to cancelling, quietly bleeding a small monthly amount that adds up to something considerably less small by December.
This year’s discovery was a genuinely embarrassing amount spent on an app I used exactly twice before forgetting it existed, a small but pointed reminder that my relationship with my own subscriptions needs considerably more active management than I currently give it.
What the exercise is actually for
I do not do this annual review because I think I am going to suddenly become a different, more disciplined person as a result of it. I do it because there is something genuinely clarifying about seeing the actual shape of a year’s spending laid out plainly, rather than living entirely inside the vague, comfortable sense that things are probably roughly fine.
They are, generally, roughly fine. But roughly fine looks considerably more specific and more interesting once you have actually looked at the numbers properly, and I think that specificity is worth the mild January discomfort of confronting exactly how much coffee I apparently drink.
More London life writing at Lowri Griffiths’ page, Bohiney.
What I am actually going to change this year
Every January I also make a specific, genuinely intended list of changes, usually involving some combination of cooking more, walking more, and cancelling whatever forgotten subscription I have just rediscovered, and every year I follow through on some but not all of it, which I have decided to consider a reasonable success rate rather than a failure.
This year’s list is not dramatically different from last year’s, which either means I am not learning anything or means the same basic adjustments are simply worth repeating annually, and I have decided to believe the more generous interpretation.
One more thing
I will do this exact exercise again next January, and I already suspect the coffee number will surprise me all over again despite knowing better by then.
The number that actually surprised me most
The genuinely biggest surprise this year was not the coffee total at all, but a specific delivery app total that I had somehow managed to almost entirely block from my own memory.
Closing thought
See you next January, presumably, staring at the same kind of numbers with the same kind of mild, familiar surprise.
Another small thing
I have also started, this year, actually looking at the numbers monthly rather than only once in January, which has already made the annual shock considerably smaller.
More on this soon, I am sure.
Last thought, honestly
Roughly fine is, I have decided, a perfectly respectable place to land, provided you actually know what roughly fine looks like in specific detail.
A final image
I still wince slightly every time that delivery app notification pops up now, which I am choosing to count as genuine progress.
More soon.
Until next time.
End.
What I would tell someone just moving here
If you have not yet done this exact exercise with your own bank statements, I genuinely recommend it, uncomfortable as the first hour of it inevitably is.
End.
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